Camera IconCCTV vision shows a patient attacking a doctor at Royal Perth.

Almost 10,000 code blacks were reported at three of Perth’s biggest hospitals last year, with WA’s nursing union warning someone will be seriously hurt unless more is done to combat violent behaviour.

Code blacks are incidents or threats of aggression that could cause harm to staff, patients or visitors, and are often fuelled by drugs and alcohol.

Health Department figures for last year show 9825 code blacks at Royal Perth, Fiona Stanley and Sir Charles Gairdner hospitals.

The numbers are down on those for 2017, a decrease linked to a stronger no-tolerance message at hospitals and changes in reporting methods.

RPH had the most code blacks last year, with 3600, while SCGH had 3354 and FSH had 2871.

There were also 211 code blacks at WA’s specialist maternity hospital, King Edward Memorial.

The Australian Nursing Federation said nurses, particularly those in emergency departments, were regularly frightened for their safety because of unruly people.

State secretary Mark Olson said the Health Department should not wait until someone was killed or seriously hurt before it employed more security staff.

“We’ve had ANF members and their families tell us they’re frightened for their safety because assaults are so common at EDs, and staff now see being punched, kicked and spat on, as well as being verbally abused and threatened, as a fact of life,” he said.

Mr Olson called for more special units for violent drug and alcohol-affected patients modelled on the toxicology urgent care clinic which opened at RPH last year.

Australian Medical Association WA emergency medicine spokesman David Mountain said more security staff would not stop violence.

“We’re averaging about 10 code blacks a day in each of the hospitals, and generally the response from our security teams is good and we have reasonable numbers,” Dr Mountain said.

“We need to look at what’s driving the underlying problem, and that’s the societal issue we have of a lot more arced-up and unhappy people ending up in EDs.

“Then we’re keeping them there for long periods of time because there is no outlet or bed for them, so one individual might cause seven or eight code blacks.”